The Great Uprising of 1877
The Digital History site (referred to in the Helpful
Websites folder as a good resource) includes more detail
about the great railroad strike of 1877:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_displa
y.cfm?HHID=224
The conditions leading to the strike began in 1873 when
a great depression gripped the nation. Unemployment
topped 25 percent in many cities and homeless workers
organized protests. Four years of misery later, railroad
workers struck back. The 1877 Great Railroad Strike
started in July in Martinsburg, West Virginia, as workers
staggered by a 10 percent wage cut uncoupled all
engines, promising to let the trains run when their wages
were restored.
Below you see prints from Harper's Weekly showing first
the blockading of engines at Martinsburg and below that
a railroad bridge burned by the strikers.
WSBCTC
1
Credit: The great strike--Blockade of engines at Martinsburg, West
Virginia / from photograph by D. Bendann. The great strike--Burning
of the Lebanon Valley Railroad bridge by the rioters / drawn by Fred.
WSBCTC
2
B. Schell. Illus. in: Harper's weekly, v. 21, no. 1076 (1877 Aug. 11), p.
620. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62125624, Digital ID cph.3c25624.
Within a few days, the strike spread along the
transcontinental railroad lines to New York, Buffalo,
Pittsburgh, Chicago, Kansas City, and San Francisco.
Workers in other industries and the unemployed joined
the strike, defying armed militias sent by railroad
owners.
Look at this headline from the Chicago Times about
rioting in that city in July 1877.
WSBCTC
3
The rioting continued for nearly a week with business
leaders calling for the deportation, arrest, or execution of
strike leaders, while Law and Order Leagues swept
through working-class neighborhoods and broke up union
meetings.
President Rutherford B. Hayes, fearing a "national
insurrection," called in the US Army. In Pittsburgh,
federal troops equipped with Gatling guns fired into a
crowd, killing over 20 people. At strike's end, over 100
had died.
Below a series of illustrations for another newspaper of
the time showing some of the violence and destruction
during the strike as well as the use of National Guard
troops.
WSBCTC
4
WSBCTC
5
Credit: The great railroad strike of July 1877. Illus. in: Frank Leslie's
Illustrated Newspaper, (1877 Aug. 11), p. 388-9. Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-61237, Digital ID
cph.3b08921.
Aftermath
The strike haunted business and government leaders and
prompted the creation of the National Guard and the
construction of armories near potentially dangerous
industrial neighborhoods. Workers learned from the strike
as well. As individuals they could exert little control over
their wages and working conditions, but if they could
organize then the power of their numbers could give
them some control.
In the early 1880s, workers staged nearly 500 strikes per
year and by 1886 that number reached 1500. From 1875
to 1910, state troops were called out nearly 500 times to
confront labor unrest.
©2010 Susan Vetter, rev. 2011.
Coeur d'Alene Mining Wars of 1892 and 1899
The Digital History readings discussed the Coeur d'Alene
strikes and their aftermath:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_displa
y.cfm?HHID=232
When we think about industries and labor violence in the
WSBCTC
6
late 19th century, we often look only east of the
Mississippi River to the steel plants in Homestead,
Pennsylvania, where you read about the 1892 strike in
which workers fought Pinkerton detectives in gun battles
that resulted in deaths on both sides.
But the West and in particular North Idaho was also the
scene of labor violence in a predominant industry,
mining. In both 1892 and 1899 mine workers in the
Coeur d'Alene Valley (along I-90 and including the towns
of Kellogg and Wallace).
Mining furnished the raw materials vital to the industries
of the east and its workers sought the same protections
as workers there. Technology threatened not only the
miner's wage but also his life. In the late 1880s,
pneumatic drills replaced the by-hand swinging of a pick.
The drills expelled such thick clouds of dust that silicosis
became a major health problem (the silica in the dust
destroys the lungs' air sacs) leading miners to call the
drills "widow makers." Here's a historic photos of miners
WSBCTC
7
underground in the Coeur d'Alenes.
These drills drastically increased production because
miners could drill more holes into which to load more
dynamite to blast away more rock. At the same time the
drills reduced many skilled miners to the role of
"muckers," shoveling out debris and paid less than
miners. By 1892 the miners' unions demanded a uniform
$3.50 per day for all underground work. They also
wanted control over the hospital fund created by the $1
deducted by the companies from their monthly wages.
Tensions escalated between miners and management.
Unknown to the miners, the companies had hired
Pinkerton detective Charlie Siringo who infiltrated the
union and became recording secretary, reporting the
union's every move to management. When his duplicity
was discovered, Siringo crawled out of town under the
board sidewalk.
WSBCTC
8
In 1892 Coeur d'Alene mining companies discharged
many union members in midwinter and closed the mines.
When the mines reopened in April, the wage was cut and
miners who refused to work for the new wage were
replaced by nonunion workers (scabs) and protected
them with Pinkerton detectives. In July union members
struck back in a gunfight at one mine that resulted in
blowing up its mill (miners of course know how to use
dynamite). The miners also threatened to blow up the
Bunker Hill and Sullivan Company's concentrator if the
company did not get rid of the strikebreaking workers.
The company relented and the strikebreakers left the
Coeur d'Alenes. The violence ended with 6 dead, 3 on
each side, and more than a dozen injured.
Idaho's governor declared martial law in Shoshone
County (where the Coeur d'Alene mines are located) and
instructed the soldiers he sent to incarcerate 300 in what
became known as "bull pens." Those arrested included
miners but also lawyers, merchants, local judges, and
saloonkeepers who had union sympathies. Those arrested
were confined for nearly two months without charges.
Finally 25 union leaders were taken to Boise for trial and
some were sentenced to 6 months in jail. Here are some
miners in one of these outdoor bull pens.
WSBCTC
9
Again in 1899 tensions erupted between miners and
management at the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Company
because the company was the only one in the Coeur
d'Alenes to refuse to pay shovelers and miners the same
wage of $3.50/day, paying shovelers (called "muckers")
50 cents less.
A planned union protest escalated out of control to result
in union men hijacking a train and driving it to the
Bunker Hill where they blew up the $250,000
concentrator. One union member and one non-union
worker died.
The Bunker Hill management used political connections to
convince the Idaho governor to once again declare
martial law and federal soldiers took over and ran the
district, ousting local elected leaders, for over a year.
Those soldiers rounded up every miner, between six and
seven hundred, into bull pens once again.
With union sympathizers out of local government, Bunker
Hill controlled local government and used it to put into
WSBCTC
10
place its supporters and instituting an employment
system that effectively kept any miner with union
connections from securing a job. Union efforts in the
Coeur d'Alene mines were thwarted for decades.
©2009 Susan Vetter, rev. 2011
WSBCTC
11